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Review

Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas

by Brian Kenney

Rudolph, New York is one of those unique places where the holidays are celebrated 24/7/365. In fact, the town has branded itself as America’s Christmas town, and nearly every shop in the bustling downtown caters to some type of holiday need, including Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, the gift shop owned by our narrator, Merry Wilkinson. This holiday season, the town is in a lather over the local amateur production of the musical version of “A Christmas Carol,” with Aline, Merry’s mom, a retired opera singer, taking the lead role. From the leadership down to the cast and crew, rivalries abound and nearly everyone has an ax to grind. But when one of the cast members is found dead in Merry’s shop, everyone starts to look guilty, including Aline. This is an expansive cozy—with quite a number of characters floating about—but Delany never allows the reader to become overwhelmed. Fans of Donna Andrews will love this sixth installment in the series.

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Review

Baking Spirits Bright

by Brian Kenney

Yes, I would happily move to Larch Haven, Vermont—and after 20 pages in this book, you would too. Except, perhaps, for the slight issue with murder. Former actress Becca Ransom has taken up a new career as a chocolatier and moved back to hometown Larch Haven. All is going super—relatives are actually helpful, she has a best friend she can rely on—until she is cajoled into entering the Baking Spirits Bright holiday baking competition. Turns out this annual event isn’t just popular, it’s a beacon for the seriously anxious and unpleasant…one of whom ends up murdered, killed with Becca’s own chocolate chipper (ouch! It’s a six-pronged device used to break up chocolate or ice. Look it up.) We know the drill: Becca needs to solve the mystery to clear her record. But with a cute cop in her court, I wasn’t too worried. A fun, classic holiday cozy that features a great cast of characters.

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Review

A Nutcracker Nightmare

by Henrietta Thornton

Alex Wright and her sister, Hanna Eastham, co-owners of Murder and Mayhem: Killer Chocolates and Bookshop, are hard at work preparing goodies in their Montana store for the Festive Foods Chocolates Competition. It’s just their luck that at the same time as they’re hard at work preparing sweets for the local high-school reunion they’re also smack in the middle of their busiest season, the winter holidays. Still, they’re muddling through until a murder at the reunion stops the community in its tracks. A man who was unpopular in school and has increased his enemy count by being “gropey” at the reunion (Hanna suspects he has “an octopus in his bloodline”) meets his not-so-sweet end. And unbelievably, Hanna is suspected in the killing. The elements we love in a cozy are all here: tight family relationships, romantic interests with law enforcement, off-screen killings, food, and bookstores. What’s not to love? This one has rich characterization to boot and a story that will keep readers guessing till the last Strychnine Strawberry chocolate is but a gooey memory.

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Review

The Final Curtain

by Brian Kenney

Keigo Higashino makes the unbelievable become credible in this expansive novel that takes an extremely personal turn. After leaving her husband and son behind a decade ago, the mother of Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga lived out a quiet life in remote Sendai. Kaga only learned of her location after her death, and while sorting through her meager possessions and interviewing her one friend, he gains no answers to the many questions he has about his mother’s disappearance and life. Today, sixteen years later, Kaga is investigating the murder of Michiko Oshitani, a resident of Sendai who is found strangled to death in Tokyo—a place where she has no known connections. Why was Oshitani in Tokyo? With the help of his cousin, also a police detective, Kaga follows a series of twists and turns to finally arrive at a connection between Oshitani’s murder and the death of his mother that is absolutely staggering. Beautifully written and superbly translated, this is the concluding volume to a brilliant four-part series, and the plunge into Kaga’s personal life makes this title especially satisfying.

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Review

The Mantis

by Brian Kenney

Isaka’s third book in this semi-series—the first, Bullet Train, was made into a popular film featuring Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock—takes a bit of a departure. Yes, we’re focused on a genius hit man, in this case Kabuto. He’s beholden to the Doctor, an actual doctor who hilariously uses medical terminology as code to describe the hits. They’re oftentimes bizarre, wildly creative, or just plain funny. But Kabuto is over it. He wants out, except the Doctor isn’t ready to lose such talent and forces Kabuko to pay his way out, taking down some other professional assassins as his swan song. But for all the time we spend in Tokyo’s criminal underground, this book is more grounded in Kabuko’s life as a family man with a teen son and a wife, who are convinced his work is in office supplies! Kabuto’s relationship with his wife is uniquely fraught; he keeps a journal of phrases useful to appease her, while his son is remarkably loving towards his browbeaten dad. Featuring a professional killer who cringes because he ate the last of his wife’s favorite pudding, this book is poignant, sweet, and full of surprises. No need to read the earlier novels to appreciate this title.

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Review

The Lover of No Fixed Abode.

by Henrietta Thornton

This strange, beautiful tale wedges readers into the crowded boats and alleys of Venice while whisking them along on a three-day romance with a Roman princess and the down-at-heel tour guide she falls for. The two seem to float above the city’s watery fray even before meeting. After meeting, they withdraw completely into their own emotional realm, “literally liquefied” by their fascination and passion for each other. Time is immaterial, they agree, as they find themselves “precariously suspended between being and non-being,” contemplate “intimate perplexities on who is who, where the I ends and the you begins,” and eat “a variety of little inventions.” The love story, which as the translator’s note explains, features more robustly in the book than the crime tale related to the princess’s work as an art dealer, soon provokes questions in the reader. Where is the tour guide from? Why must he leave Venice despite his grief over losing the love he has just stumbled upon? The answer to the mystery is startling and brings up many questions about the nature of life and how the past, and past injustices, can resonate today. Try this after Danielle Trussoni’s The Puzzle Master; you’ll come back to Earth eventually

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Review

The Last True Templar

by Jeff Ayers

The brother/sister team of Boyd and Beth Morrison delivers a stellar sequel to The Lawless Land. Gerard Fox and Lady Willa are adventuring together in 1351 Italy, hoping to overcome their problematic societal pasts to marry. They stumble upon an ambush and help an older woman, Luciana, escape the attack. That act of kindness plunges them into a decade-old search for the location of the Templar treasure. It doesn’t help that Luciana’s greedy husband wants her dead and the treasure for himself. To succeed in their quest, Gerard and Willa must overcome betrayal, villainy, and deception while keeping the truth of their heritage secret. The Middle Ages comes to glorious life mixed with a plot from a Clive Cussler novel. The Last True Templar is adventure at its finest, and the pacing never slows down for a second. The story reads like the authors somehow have a time machine and are merely transcribing actual events. Readers will be anxious for the next book in the series, and hopefully a big-screen adaptation is not far behind.

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Review

American Girl

by Henrietta Thornton

This American Girl has nothing to do with dolls, and her life is anything but toy-store quaint. Pennsylvania high-school-senior Charlie is autistic, a reality she’s learned to mask by carefully studying TV characters and everyone in her life. She’s developed rules, ways for “a child like that” to understand the world, but some things remain unfathomable. People get harder or easier to look at, for example, depending on their behavior. Grandma threw Charlie and her mother out, because “whores get what whores deserve.” And making a friend is hard when adults fear that Charlie’s mom might not “[run] a home with the right values.” But she finally finds a haven in the Triple S, a sandwich store where she fits right in with the downtrodden coworkers, who are all struggling to stay afloat while avoiding the handsy, loathsome boss. When he’s found dead, and security camera footage shows Charlie witnessing something off camera that horrifies her, she’s placed firmly in the spotlight. This is an uncomfortable position and readers will root hard for her to leave, not least because MIT is waiting for this gutsy girl. Teens as well as adults will enjoy this smart kid’s inner life and Walker’s wry observations about small-town life.

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Review

Starter Villain

by Jeff Ayers

Charlie’s life is nothing special. He makes a pittance taking occasional substitute-teaching gigs and lives with his two cats in his dad’s house, to the detriment of his other siblings. When his uncle passes away, his will stipulates that Charlie oversees the funeral, and then will receive his inheritance. The only people who show up at the service are his uncle’s enemies, and they all go out of their way to ensure the body inside the coffin is dead. After the service, Charlie learns that his inheritance is a lair built inside a dormant volcano, and his uncle was a supervillain. With Charlie becoming the new head of his uncle’s business practices, he will need a crash course on being ruthless and bloodthirsty if he can stay alive long enough. James Bond villainy meets Despicable Me in this hilarious and intense journey into the other side of the battle between good and evil, featuring mostly shady characters mixed with a team that is unlike any seen anywhere before in a thriller. Starter Villain is a blast. Fans of Scalzi will consider it one of his best, and thriller fans who want humor and a different perspective into the world of criminals will treasure it.

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Review

Murder Most Royal

by Brian Kenney

When Queen Elizabeth II died this past September, some were grief-struck, others in shock, while many merely shrugged. I, however, had one thought: what would this mean for Bennett’s delightful Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series? I’m pleased to say that the third book is being released, set over the 2016/2017 holidays, picking up where the second book left off. Since it’s the holidays, the Queen and Prince Philip, along with family and hangers-on, are holed up for six weeks in Sandringham House on the Norfolk coast. As if there isn’t enough to worry about with Brexit and that new American president, a severed hand, wrapped in a plastic bag, washes up on a Norfolk beach. Its one identifying characteristic? A signet ring, although only the Queen recognizes it as belonging to the aristocratic St Cyr family. Between the lying media and the incompetent police, the Queen eventually launches her own investigation, along with the ever trustworthy Assistant Private Secretary Rozie Oshodi. While in previous books the Queen took a directive approach, here she is more actively involved in sussing out the murderer. Luckily for us, Bennett confirms that she plans to write more in the series “as there is still so much of her life to explore.”

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